Primal

PRIMAL

for Christine

The elemental north―your north―
solid, but soft as rainfall that's seeped
through rock, always seems
close to an edge of things,

where the original night might still exist,
the first dark anyone ever knew,
taking turns with day's dull
hammered metal, and the fellside's

cloth of sombre colour, under a wind
sharp as a breath of zero, blown in
from some near-legendary place.
This is where you came from. With your

matter of fact, your down to earth, the
canny mineral of your cool blue eyes.

First Published in The Journal
© Paul Surman 2015